Book View: Is it just me or...

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by MrsCatnip

And yes, I seem to remember the problems with Book View but that was just in one version I believe. But it was irritating, true.

The issues with editing in Book View were there in every Sigil version where I tested. Admittedly, most of the time I was using Book View as a viewer so Preview fitted my use case better (Code View on one monitor, Preview on the other).

Originally Posted by MrsCatnip

Again thanks a lot to the team here for the support, the answers are really very prompt, it's a great job you are doing!

I have to agree there. Other than DiapDealer and KevinH here and Kovid Goyal in the calibre forum, I've seldom seen any developer respond as quickly to issues and are willing to explain the reasons behind design decisions.

[Pachuqismo]

@PhilippeBruno

No, it's not just you. I also regret the disappearance and ease of selecting between Book and Code view. It was perfect for the typical fine-tuning that I need to do 99% of the time (i.e. adding/modifying incomplete table of contents which doesn't require the Code view at all).

Opening a small Book view with F10 only clutters the app and opening PageEdit obscures Sigil's Book Browser and Table of Contents.

For me the new Sigil layout is definitely a step back favoring users needing extensive coding over those who only occasionally require it. Would be interesting to see how users are distributed to the two categories.

[DiapDealer]

I've no idea what you guys hope to gain/achieve with all this sad-sacking and commiseration--perhaps you find it carthartic, I don't know. The bottom line is that Book View is gone after v0.9.14. Nothing is going to change that. Your choices are to adapt to the new reality and move forward with Sigil without Book View, or to stick with version 0.9.14 since it meets all of your needs. I suggest you get busy doing one or the other.

We didn't steal the versions of Sigil that still work for you. Continue using them with our blessing, or adjust to the new way. Because if I have to continue listening to this pointless carping much longer, I'm just going to start deleting all new posts that mention Book View.

As far as I'm concerned, Book View was a self-inflicted wound that has been holding Sigil back since day one.

[JSWolf]

Personally, I never used Book View to make changes. So having it changed to a preview view is better overall. It also means no more having people use Book View like a word processor when it's not.

[BetterRed]

For a long time I thought BV was Preview in the CodeView space - for people who had small screens or used large fonts. Because I don't use toolbars I didn't realise it had editing capabilities. But even when the penny dropped I never found any use for it.

But I find PageView quite useful for proof reading, simple spell checking etc. Haven't tried the latest version using opf files yet - but I'm leaning towards merging the xhtml files, do the proofreading and corrections on a single file, and re-split when finished.

BR

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

For a long time I thought BV was Preview in the CodeView space - for people who had small screens or used large fonts. Because I don't use toolbars I didn't realise it had editing capabilities. But even when the penny dropped I never found any use for it.

But I find PageView quite useful for proof reading, simple spell checking etc. Haven't tried the latest version using opf files yet - but I'm leaning towards merging the xhtml files, do the proofreading and corrections on a single file, and re-split when finished.

BR

I haven't tried this on the recent versions of Sigil so this may be outdated, but I've found that the larger the file is, the slower Sigil goes - especially when doing multiple S&R. I think it's a matter of how much text does Sigil needs to keep in memory when doing multiple changes before committing to the change and saving the file?? In any case, I've found that it is significantly faster to break the files into their chapters for editing. FWIW.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

I haven't tried this on the recent versions of Sigil so this may be outdated, but I've found that the larger the file is, the slower Sigil goes - especially when doing multiple S&R. I think it's a matter of how much text does Sigil needs to keep in memory when doing multiple changes before committing to the change and saving the file?? In any case, I've found that it is significantly faster to break the files into their chapters for editing. FWIW.

Dodging between files is a PITA when proofreading and speed isn't that important. Anyway it's me doing it - why should anyone care if I merge 20 chapter files into one, proofread and correct, and then split the corrected text back into the 20 chapter files again.

I maybe using the wrong term, the process I'm referring includes things like fact checking, plotline, voice and character consistency, grammar, spelling, style checking (as in Chicago, Cambridge...) etc. Copy/content/manuscript editing might be better terms.

There's more to a book than layout and typography - unless its a book on such

BR

[Evil Overlord]

Originally Posted by pete6055

Did you know that you can simulate book view by decoupling the PREVEW WINDOW (hit F10). Drag and drop the preview window over the html viewer, resize the window to take up all or part of the available space. Use F10 instead of F2 to toggle between views. A really simple fix to give you "BOOK VIEW" again.

Great tip, and useful for those of us who work on laptops, not huge desktop screens.

[Bigo2]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

...Nothing is going to change that. Your choices are to adapt to the new reality and move forward with Sigil without Book View, or to stick with version 0.9.14 since it meets all of your needs...

Hi, I don't miss the Book View because I simply do not update beyond 0.9.14... It does not bother me using 1 year older version yet, but I’m afraid in time it will.
It is unnecessary to talk about using Preview instead, because it is something else.

People are used to work in WORD Print Layout mode, imagine that MS would decide to get rid of it: Dear users, the Print Layout mode sucks… we will no more support it, we will never bring it back. Since this new version you will have to use the Draft mode, if you want you can open the Print Preview Page…

DiapDealer, the Book View is similar and by removing it you’ve downgraded your excellent program. Do you realize that downgrading things does not advance the civilisation...?

In one of your answers you told us:
...Book View sucked. Maintaining it sucked, updating it sucked, and finding workarounds for everything that it broke sucked. Every new feature envisioned had to jump through convoluted hoops just to make sure Book View didn't blow it all up. That sucked. Everything about it sucked. So we chucked it...

When something sucks it is often not because the idea was wrong. Fixing it to the perfection is called the challenge, and if you love developing this program and it is your hobby, the challenge must be something you should welcome!

In new versions of Sigil there are some unneeded features often added which not many users need, on the other hand removing a feature which was there from beginning, important to many, many users, perhaps the majority, is quite shortsighted…
You should realize that.

[DiapDealer]

Blah, blah, blah.
Now I'm responsible for the decline of civilization. Wheeeeee!

The only thing that was "short-sighted" about what we did was thinking that warning people for fricking YEARS that Book View was going away just might let them prepare for that eventuality. In retrospect, we should have just done it years ago. The fallout would have been the same, but the world would have moved on already, and these whingey drive-by posts would have stopped.

[doubleshuffle]

Originally Posted by Bigo2

People are used to work in WORD Print Layout mode, imagine that MS would decide to get rid of it: Dear users, the Print Layout mode sucks… we will no more support it, we will never bring it back. Since this new version you will have to use the Draft mode, if you want you can open the Print Preview Page…

DiapDealer, the Book View is similar and by removing it you’ve downgraded your excellent program. Do you realize that downgrading things does not advance the civilisation...?

Apples and oranges. Programs like Word are made for end users who don't want to bother with what's going on below the surface.

If you think you can produce viable ebooks with such an approach, shouldn't you rather get one of the commercial WYSIWYG programs that promise to produce super duper ebooks?

Sigil does what it's supposed to do, and brilliantly at that.

[Notjohn]

>Programs like Word are made for end users who don't want to bother with what's going on below the surface.

Absolutely. I don't understand the yen for Book View when Preview serves the same function (and does it better IMHO).

>Blah, blah, blah.

Trust Diap to elevate the quality of the discourse!

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

Trust Diap to elevate the quality of the discourse!

Please tread carefully Notjohn. Your presence around here wouldn't really be missed all that much.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

Apples and oranges. Programs like Word are made for end users who don't want to bother with what's going on below the surface.

If you think you can produce viable ebooks with such an approach, shouldn't you rather get one of the commercial WYSIWYG programs that promise to produce super duper ebooks?

Sigil does what it's supposed to do, and brilliantly at that.

Those wiz-bang WYSIWYG eBook programs produce some really awful code.

[JSWolf]

Well done for Sigil version 1.x with a proper preview instead of book view.